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Anyone have performance problems with this on PC? I run a lot of much prettier games silky smooth but this one studders in odd places. Looking for tweaks now but thought I'd post and see if this is a common problem.

Anyone have performance problems with this on PC? I run a lot of much prettier games silky smooth but this one studders in odd places. Looking for tweaks now but thought I'd post and see if this is a common problem.

Yeah - unfortunately this is an effect of the way the game loads new areas in the middle of existing ones, causing the odd lurch. It shouldn't be too prevalent though, although some are noticing it more than others. I've heard you can get around this by fiddling with the loading method in the .ini, but haven't tried it myself.

Oh - and make sure you turn off motion blur, as it makes everything look awful even if performance is unaffected.

It's all random it seems mostly, though opening doors can often lock me up for several seconds.
In the intro for example, when I was in the training areas, it would lock up for a few seconds when I got on and off a ladder, which was odd but not a big deal. The problematic times are when I'm trying to sneak. On the second floor area when you have to sneak around the guard and get to the game's first first-aid kit, it would lock up as I was moving around, just got a second or so, but enough where when it unlock I'd be facing the wrong way or the enemy would have moved to a point where he saw me, etc.

I've turned off motion blur (first thing really heh) and I just tried an ini tweak and I'll see if that works but it was just to set the min and max FPS which I dont figure will help.

ME1's combat wasn't good, but AP's is worse. In ME1, skills actually improved your weapon handling, while meager gunplay was bolstered by a full bank of powers to use, and only at the beginning of the game did they take a minute to recharge. In AP, unless you spread yourself thin, you'll only have a few powers, and they take awhile to charge throughout the game.

Of course, it's probably better off with fewer powers because constantly going into the menu to switch powers would get annoying, but the gameplay is still uninspiring.

If we're going to the discussion of what's fun or not, I'm not even sure ME2 is as fun as AP.

Everyone's bitching about the "dumb AI", but both Mass Effects feature enemies that either rush your position or just simply stick to the part of cover that they've spawned behind, and shoot until you kill them/you're dead. Yes, they're in character and don't break your immersion by exhibiting erratic behavior, but if we're going with which AI is dumber, one of them is certainly doing less.

While they're not exhibiting signs of stupidity like AP's AI is by trying to do different things, they are certainly making the game very one dimensional, and the break-away you're given is with what weapon/power you kill them. They don't patrol, they don't have three different stages of alertness, they don't investigate, don't have directional sight, and generally they don't really do much of anything other than shoot and take cover. But the status quo remains the same. Move forward > get in cover > shoot until dead > repeat. Mass Effect 2 was great fun for me, I did it on Insanity and it was bundles of joy, but it didn't offer much beyond going from spot to spot shooting guys behind cover, however fun biotics may be.

AP still has this exact same thing going on through much of the game, but it varies it up, offers stealth approaches, and the level design is much more inspired much of the time, other than just shoving a bunch of rocks in a hallway, so the enemy and you can take cover and shoot it out.

Skill wise, yes, Mass Effect 1 certainly gave you a whole bunch of extras to play around with, but the only thing they boil down to is again, how you're going to kill the enemy, which is more or less precisely what AP does as well. Perhaps there is some great value in having 6 powers at once to take down the enemy instead of AP's 3, but I can't say I see it.

Rating gameplay on a "fun" scale, especially with all the challenges of no death, and no alarms, I'd probably rank AP above ME2. The perk/achievement system, the conversations (and their outcomes/variations), the minigames, etc. are all definite levels above anything the Mass Effect games delivered, in my opinion.

The whole end sequence is heaping helpings of bullshit. The Darcy fight alone really pissed me off because holy shit is it insanely poor level design to have a boss you can't reach, constantly shoots you with a sniper rifle, throws three grenades at once when he isn't shooting you, and gets constant backup. I didn't want to kill him, but after a few tries I didn't even care and just shot him to death. And lets not forget the room filled with turrets with no indicator for where to shut them down and endlessly respawning soldiers. And the helicopter which can take something like five rockets and still not die.

And worse than that, I was supposed to save Mina and then the game gives me no damn clue as to where she is. And then I took two steps through the wrong door, the ceiling collapsed behind me, and she was executed. But due to the stupid checkpoint system, it saved instantly and I was unable to go back. Terrible, terrible, terrible design.

In short, the team that did the level design for this game need to banned from game development permanently. The level design for the last section almost completely soured the end bits for me. I'm pretty sure the end would've been vastly improved if they'd just removed the combat entirely and made it just dialogue.

It's easy to see the difference when your crew in ME2 will generally have one line of dialogue every few missions and then rinse and repeat over and over and will say bugger all while on missions while AP features a variety of dialogue and individual responses to different actions you can take on earlier missions and ultimately gives you a summary of what has happened as a result of the things you did or didn't do.

The whole end sequence is heaping helpings of bullshit. The Darcy fight alone really pissed me off because holy shit is it insanely poor level design to have a boss you can't reach, constantly shoots you with a sniper rifle, throws three grenades at once when he isn't shooting you, and gets constant backup. I didn't want to kill him, but after a few tries I didn't even care and just shot him to death. And lets not forget the room filled with turrets with no indicator for where to shut them down and endlessly respawning soldiers. And the helicopter which can take something like five rockets and still not die.

And worse than that, I was supposed to save Mina and then the game gives me no damn clue as to where she is. And then I took two steps through the wrong door, the ceiling collapsed behind me, and she was executed. But due to the stupid checkpoint system, it saved instantly and I was unable to go back. Terrible, terrible, terrible design.

In short, the team that did the level design for this game need to banned from game development permanently. The level design for the last section almost completely soured the end bits for me. I'm pretty sure the end would've been vastly improved if they'd just removed the combat entirely and made it just dialogue.

Depends what you're doing, I got some decent dialogue. The Darcy fight was a pain for me, basically theres a tower to the left of you as you start and the best way is to get in there, go upstairs and use the sniper rifle to kill him but the door is on the side away from you so you won't see it until you go out there.

But the only nightmare was that fucking Helicopter, every missile shaves a sliver of my health away and I struggled to find them all. Best thing to do is the end hut, it only moves backwards so if you stand in front of that tower it can't hit you and it won't move to get a better position.

I can't remmeber why but I think Westridge (Who I was after) was on the tv above one door so I went with the other to go get Mina since that was the choice, him or Mina.

The whole end sequence is heaping helpings of bullshit. The Darcy fight alone really pissed me off because holy shit is it insanely poor level design to have a boss you can't reach, constantly shoots you with a sniper rifle, throws three grenades at once when he isn't shooting you, and gets constant backup. I didn't want to kill him, but after a few tries I didn't even care and just shot him to death. And lets not forget the room filled with turrets with no indicator for where to shut them down and endlessly respawning soldiers. And the helicopter which can take something like five rockets and still not die.

And worse than that, I was supposed to save Mina and then the game gives me no damn clue as to where she is. And then I took two steps through the wrong door, the ceiling collapsed behind me, and she was executed. But due to the stupid checkpoint system, it saved instantly and I was unable to go back. Terrible, terrible, terrible design.

In short, the team that did the level design for this game need to banned from game development permanently. The level design for the last section almost completely soured the end bits for me. I'm pretty sure the end would've been vastly improved if they'd just removed the combat entirely and made it just dialogue.

Depends what you're doing, I got some decent dialogue. The Darcy fight was a pain for me, basically theres a tower to the left of you as you start and the best way is to get in there, go upstairs and use the sniper rifle to kill him but the door is on the side away from you so you won't see it until you go out there.

But the only nightmare was that fucking Helicopter, every missile shaves a sliver of my health away and I struggled to find them all. Best thing to do is the end hut, it only moves backwards so if you stand in front of that tower it can't hit you and it won't move to get a better position.

I can't remmeber why but I think Westridge (Who I was after) was on the tv above one door so I went with the other to go get Mina since that was the choice, him or Mina.

The dialogue stuff was fine, it was just the horrible level design which wrecked it for me. The one-way door shit I'd actually encountered multiple times before; I've had regular plain doors shut and lock behind me while exploring, cutting me off from places where I KNEW there was stuff but hadn't been there yet. It really would have killed the devs to just give me an indicator on my map for where to go? Because logically, the first thing I checked was my map after be given the option; there was no indicator so I figured she was farther ahead. Walked two steps through the wrong door, explosion cuts me off, and then the auto-save screws me over so I either have to do the whole mission over or just write Mina off.

As for the chopper, I hit the thing with every available rocket and it did not die. Should've taken 3, tops, just for the sake of not being an awful fight.

Anyone have performance problems with this on PC? I run a lot of much prettier games silky smooth but this one studders in odd places. Looking for tweaks now but thought I'd post and see if this is a common problem.

I think it's pretty common. The majority of people who aren't simply whining because they suck have been citing PC performance issues.

The whole end sequence is heaping helpings of bullshit. The Darcy fight alone really pissed me off because holy shit is it insanely poor level design to have a boss you can't reach, constantly shoots you with a sniper rifle, throws three grenades at once when he isn't shooting you, and gets constant backup. I didn't want to kill him, but after a few tries I didn't even care and just shot him to death. And lets not forget the room filled with turrets with no indicator for where to shut them down and endlessly respawning soldiers. And the helicopter which can take something like five rockets and still not die.

And worse than that, I was supposed to save Mina and then the game gives me no damn clue as to where she is. And then I took two steps through the wrong door, the ceiling collapsed behind me, and she was executed. But due to the stupid checkpoint system, it saved instantly and I was unable to go back. Terrible, terrible, terrible design.

In short, the team that did the level design for this game need to banned from game development permanently. The level design for the last section almost completely soured the end bits for me. I'm pretty sure the end would've been vastly improved if they'd just removed the combat entirely and made it just dialogue.

Depends what you're doing, I got some decent dialogue. The Darcy fight was a pain for me, basically theres a tower to the left of you as you start and the best way is to get in there, go upstairs and use the sniper rifle to kill him but the door is on the side away from you so you won't see it until you go out there.

But the only nightmare was that fucking Helicopter, every missile shaves a sliver of my health away and I struggled to find them all. Best thing to do is the end hut, it only moves backwards so if you stand in front of that tower it can't hit you and it won't move to get a better position.

I can't remmeber why but I think Westridge (Who I was after) was on the tv above one door so I went with the other to go get Mina since that was the choice, him or Mina.

The dialogue stuff was fine, it was just the horrible level design which wrecked it for me. The one-way door shit I'd actually encountered multiple times before; I've had regular plain doors shut and lock behind me while exploring, cutting me off from places where I KNEW there was stuff but hadn't been there yet. It really would have killed the devs to just give me an indicator on my map for where to go? Because logically, the first thing I checked was my map after be given the option; there was no indicator so I figured she was farther ahead. Walked two steps through the wrong door, explosion cuts me off, and then the auto-save screws me over so I either have to do the whole mission over or just write Mina off.

As for the chopper, I hit the thing with every available rocket and it did not die. Should've taken 3, tops, just for the sake of not being an awful fight.

Theres two rockets in one of the huts, I missed it and thus died a lot. If you hit it with every rocket it will die, its just a nightmare doing so.

Anyone have performance problems with this on PC? I run a lot of much prettier games silky smooth but this one studders in odd places. Looking for tweaks now but thought I'd post and see if this is a common problem.

I think it's pretty common. The majority of people who aren't simply whining because they suck have been citing PC performance issues.

Anyone have performance problems with this on PC? I run a lot of much prettier games silky smooth but this one studders in odd places. Looking for tweaks now but thought I'd post and see if this is a common problem.

I think it's pretty common. The majority of people who aren't simply whining because they suck have been citing PC performance issues.

AP has hideous PC performance. Considering what I have in my system and how AP looks, the performance is offensively poor. The only reason I don't have a constant 60 FPS at all times with everything maxed in AP is pure poor coding. Also, I used 360 pad for the whole game and found it to be much preferable to KBAM save for trying to follow a target with the reticule. The controls aren't bad, but it's still stupid I can't reassign the 360 buttons to whatever I want.

As for rockets:

I hit the chopper with rockets from launchers found: on the crate right in front of you when the fight starts, down the trail by some stairs, one in the closest hut, one in the middle hut, two in the far hut, and the one or two sitting out in the field. It still did not die; it took 7-8 rockets plus me shooting the chopper to kill a lightly armored helicopter. Again, horrible design.

AP has hideous PC performance. Considering what I have in my system and how AP looks, the performance is offensively poor. The only reason I don't have a constant 60 FPS at all times with everything maxed in AP is pure poor coding. Also, I used 360 pad for the whole game and found it to be much preferable to KBAM save for trying to follow a target with the reticule. The controls aren't bad, but it's still stupid I can't reassign the 360 buttons to whatever I want.

I have a 9600 gt coppeld with an I5 750 both not overclocked and it runs absolutly smooth here. The only thing I turned off is Blur and I don't like blur in any game.

AP has hideous PC performance. Considering what I have in my system and how AP looks, the performance is offensively poor. The only reason I don't have a constant 60 FPS at all times with everything maxed in AP is pure poor coding. Also, I used 360 pad for the whole game and found it to be much preferable to KBAM save for trying to follow a target with the reticule. The controls aren't bad, but it's still stupid I can't reassign the 360 buttons to whatever I want.

I have a 9600 gt coppeld with an I5 750 both not overclocked and it runs absolutly smooth here. The only thing I turned off is Blur and I don't like blur in any game.

ATI 5850, 4GB RAM, i5-750 at 3.8 GHz and even with a bunch of things turned off, I average 30 FPS. Every safehouse has spots with horrible stuttering if you look the wrong way.

I wouldn't gripe about 30 FPS if I was playing on the 360, but there is simply no good reason for coding this poorly optimized other than bad dev choices. I've gotten pretty accustomed to 60 FPS on everything and this was not a game where it should have been otherwise. Ever.

AP has hideous PC performance. Considering what I have in my system and how AP looks, the performance is offensively poor. The only reason I don't have a constant 60 FPS at all times with everything maxed in AP is pure poor coding. Also, I used 360 pad for the whole game and found it to be much preferable to KBAM save for trying to follow a target with the reticule. The controls aren't bad, but it's still stupid I can't reassign the 360 buttons to whatever I want.

I have a 9600 gt coppeld with an I5 750 both not overclocked and it runs absolutly smooth here. The only thing I turned off is Blur and I don't like blur in any game.

ATI 5850, 4GB RAM, i5-750 at 3.8 GHz and even with a bunch of things turned off, I average 30 FPS. Every safehouse has spots with horrible stuttering if you look the wrong way.

I wouldn't gripe about 30 FPS if I was playing on the 360, but there is simply good reason for coding this poorly optimized other than bad dev choices. I've gotten pretty accustomed to 60 FPS on everything and this was not a game where it should have been otherwise. Ever.

I hit the chopper with rockets from launchers found: on the crate right in front of you when the fight starts, down the trail by some stairs, one in the closest hut, one in the middle hut, two in the far hut, and the one or two sitting out in the field. It still did not die; it took 7-8 rockets plus me shooting the chopper to kill a lightly armored helicopter. Again, horrible design.

There are five missile launchers given to you. It takes 5 missile launchers to kill the helicopter. You can dodge the helicopter's missile by sprinting. It's not a hard fight.

AP has hideous PC performance. Considering what I have in my system and how AP looks, the performance is offensively poor. The only reason I don't have a constant 60 FPS at all times with everything maxed in AP is pure poor coding. Also, I used 360 pad for the whole game and found it to be much preferable to KBAM save for trying to follow a target with the reticule. The controls aren't bad, but it's still stupid I can't reassign the 360 buttons to whatever I want.

I have a 9600 gt coppeld with an I5 750 both not overclocked and it runs absolutly smooth here. The only thing I turned off is Blur and I don't like blur in any game.

ATI 5850, 4GB RAM, i5-750 at 3.8 GHz and even with a bunch of things turned off, I average 30 FPS. Every safehouse has spots with horrible stuttering if you look the wrong way.

I wouldn't gripe about 30 FPS if I was playing on the 360, but there is simply good reason for coding this poorly optimized other than bad dev choices. I've gotten pretty accustomed to 60 FPS on everything and this was not a game where it should have been otherwise. Ever.

AP has hideous PC performance. Considering what I have in my system and how AP looks, the performance is offensively poor. The only reason I don't have a constant 60 FPS at all times with everything maxed in AP is pure poor coding. Also, I used 360 pad for the whole game and found it to be much preferable to KBAM save for trying to follow a target with the reticule. The controls aren't bad, but it's still stupid I can't reassign the 360 buttons to whatever I want.

I have a 9600 gt coppeld with an I5 750 both not overclocked and it runs absolutly smooth here. The only thing I turned off is Blur and I don't like blur in any game.

ATI 5850, 4GB RAM, i5-750 at 3.8 GHz and even with a bunch of things turned off, I average 30 FPS. Every safehouse has spots with horrible stuttering if you look the wrong way.

I wouldn't gripe about 30 FPS if I was playing on the 360, but there is simply good reason for coding this poorly optimized other than bad dev choices. I've gotten pretty accustomed to 60 FPS on everything and this was not a game where it should have been otherwise. Ever.

oO Something is wrong here. I avarage 60

Could easily be an Ati driver issue.

My 5770 hasn't had any issues at all.

I have the same card, and it runs at a consistent 60 FPS, but it does stutter wildly on occasion. Mostly when I'm switching "areas" within the map. Like, if I'm walking up some stairs or down a hallway. Probably an engine thing. Aside from that it's pretty well-optimized.

Cherrn on June 2010

All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.

AP has hideous PC performance. Considering what I have in my system and how AP looks, the performance is offensively poor. The only reason I don't have a constant 60 FPS at all times with everything maxed in AP is pure poor coding. Also, I used 360 pad for the whole game and found it to be much preferable to KBAM save for trying to follow a target with the reticule. The controls aren't bad, but it's still stupid I can't reassign the 360 buttons to whatever I want.

I have a 9600 gt coppeld with an I5 750 both not overclocked and it runs absolutly smooth here. The only thing I turned off is Blur and I don't like blur in any game.

ATI 5850, 4GB RAM, i5-750 at 3.8 GHz and even with a bunch of things turned off, I average 30 FPS. Every safehouse has spots with horrible stuttering if you look the wrong way.

I wouldn't gripe about 30 FPS if I was playing on the 360, but there is simply good reason for coding this poorly optimized other than bad dev choices. I've gotten pretty accustomed to 60 FPS on everything and this was not a game where it should have been otherwise. Ever.

oO Something is wrong here. I avarage 60

Could easily be an Ati driver issue.

My 5770 hasn't had any issues at all.

I have the same card, and it runs at a consistent 60 FPS, but it does stutter wildly on occasion. Mostly when I'm switching "areas" within the map. Like, if I'm walking up some stairs or down a hallway. Probably an engine thing. Aside from that it's pretty well-optimized.

Yeah, that's just them being inexperienced with dealing with the idiosyncrasies of UE3. And probably lazy coding.

ME1's combat wasn't good, but AP's is worse. In ME1, skills actually improved your weapon handling, while meager gunplay was bolstered by a full bank of powers to use, and only at the beginning of the game did they take a minute to recharge. In AP, unless you spread yourself thin, you'll only have a few powers, and they take awhile to charge throughout the game.

Of course, it's probably better off with fewer powers because constantly going into the menu to switch powers would get annoying, but the gameplay is still uninspiring.

If we're going to the discussion of what's fun or not, I'm not even sure ME2 is as fun as AP.

Everyone's bitching about the "dumb AI", but both Mass Effects feature enemies that either rush your position or just simply stick to the part of cover that they've spawned behind, and shoot until you kill them/you're dead. Yes, they're in character and don't break your immersion by exhibiting erratic behavior, but if we're going with which AI is dumber, one of them is certainly doing less.

While they're not exhibiting signs of stupidity like AP's AI is by trying to do different things, they are certainly making the game very one dimensional, and the break-away you're given is with what weapon/power you kill them. They don't patrol, they don't have three different stages of alertness, they don't investigate, don't have directional sight, and generally they don't really do much of anything other than shoot and take cover. But the status quo remains the same. Move forward > get in cover > shoot until dead > repeat. Mass Effect 2 was great fun for me, I did it on Insanity and it was bundles of joy, but it didn't offer much beyond going from spot to spot shooting guys behind cover, however fun biotics may be.

AP still has this exact same thing going on through much of the game, but it varies it up, offers stealth approaches, and the level design is much more inspired much of the time, other than just shoving a bunch of rocks in a hallway, so the enemy and you can take cover and shoot it out.

Skill wise, yes, Mass Effect 1 certainly gave you a whole bunch of extras to play around with, but the only thing they boil down to is again, how you're going to kill the enemy, which is more or less precisely what AP does as well. Perhaps there is some great value in having 6 powers at once to take down the enemy instead of AP's 3, but I can't say I see it.

Rating gameplay on a "fun" scale, especially with all the challenges of no death, and no alarms, I'd probably rank AP above ME2. The perk/achievement system, the conversations (and their outcomes/variations), the minigames, etc. are all definite levels above anything the Mass Effect games delivered, in my opinion.

Yea. I'm enjoying my play-through of AP much more than my play-through of ME2, and I'm still pretty sure that once I finish I'll be into it enough to run through this game a second time.

tastydonuts on June 2010

“I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone.”
― Bill Cosby